A "vertical forest" will soon be gobbling up carbon dioxide in the pollution-sick Chinese city of Nanjing. Italian architect Stefano Boeri announced plans to build a complex with two towers that will hold 1,100 trees and 2,500 cascading plants and shrubs sprouting from rooftops and balconies in the province capital of about eight million people. The Nanjing towers will be 200 and 108 meters tall, respectively, and hold offices, shops, restaurants, a museum, a green architecture school, a rooftop club, and a Hyatt hotel.
The project is Boeri's third such citadel of greenery, after the completed, much-acclaimed Bosco Verticale in Milan and a second "vertical forest" planned for Lausanne, Switzerland.
It's perhaps needed in Nanjing more than anywhere else. Industrially rich Eastern China has some of the worst air in the world and Nanjing came in 27th (as in, second-worst) in a Greenpeace ranking of 28 Chinese cities by air quality. According to Boeri's website, the project will provide 25 tons of CO2 absorption each year and produce 60 kilograms of oxygen a day.
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